MINI Makes "2010 Top Fast-Lane Four-Cylinder" List by Kelley Blue Book

Kelley Blue Book calls MINI “Arguably the best automotive example of good things coming in small packages” and we’d have to agree. Sharing the list with the Lotus Elise and Audi TT, among others, this is the category where light makes right.

The kbb.com editors decided the time was ripe for a “fast lane four cylinder” category. An interesting sign of the times. Lightweight bodies and turbocharged power plants – even at four cylinders – make for some fast and fun to drive vehicles. Sure, there’s your Hyundai Genesis and Mazdaspeed 3, the Nissan Sentra, Subaru WRX and the VW GTI… but when you’ve seen one of them you’ve seen them all. The Lotus and Audi are the only other cars on the list beside MINI that stand on their own design limits.

But the editors weren’t basing their selection on style, they were looking for finely crafted combinations of variable valve and/or camshaft timing, direct fuel injection and either supercharging or turbo charging. In other words, speed in small packages.

“There are a sheer number of performance-oriented new cars available, but even more surprising is the amount of power and performance elicited from many four-cylinder vehicles such as the MINI Cooper S/John Cooper Works,” said Irvine, California MINI General Sales Manager, Steve Rudkin. “The MINI Cooper S/John Cooper Works offers consumers a powerful and efficient vehicles, we’re honored that it is being acknowledged by Kelley Blue Book”, he said.

Kelley Blue Book ends with this: “With its new Countryman crossover launching here early next year and cool coupe and roadster variants to follow, the Mini invasion shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.”

A MINI slowing down? Never.